The ePayments online money transfer platform is restarting services following a seven month suspension – and notably absent this time around is support for cryptocurrencies. ePayments is a global money transfer service that boasts over 1 million accounts and has issued 75,000 debit cards. According to their regulator filings, the firm made profits of $US23.2 million in 2019. The company has announced that it is preparing to “start working again” but as cryptocurrency accounted for one fifth of its business, relaunching without it is notable. We are getting ready to…
Month: September 2020
Yam Finance readies for less-disastrous relaunch
Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Yam Finance is relaunching on September 18. Yam Finance V2, a fork of Compound (COMP) featuring a native token with an elastic supply, burst onto the DeFi scene last month — garnering more than half a billion in assets from yield farmers within 24 hours of launching. However, the unaudited V2 of Yam Finance came to a dramatic conclusion when a catastrophic bug caused excessive reserves to be minted which rendered it impossible for governance to be executed. The relaunch follows a period of interim governance…
Regulatory risks grow for DeFi as a ‘money laundering haven’
The rapid growth in decentralized finance and yield farming is likely to attract greater regulatory attention according to a recent report. A joint research paper by global management consulting firm BCG Platinion and Crypto.com has indicated that the rapid growth in DeFi in 2020 has created the potential for money laundering which will bring it under the radar of regulatory authorities. Since the beginning of the year, the dollar value of crypto collateral locked across DeFi platforms has increased over 1200% to reach $9 billion according to data provider DeFi…
Binance US on track to launch in all 50 states by 2021
New legislation may make it possible for Binance US, the American branch of crypto exchange Binance, to open its doors to all traders in every state by next year. According to a Sept. 15 tweet from Binance U.S. CEO Catherine Coley, the digital asset marketplace has just launched in Georgia, allowing users to buy, trade, and earn digital assets. Thrilled @BinanceUS launches in Georgia today – our 40th state! Atlanta means so much to me, a 1996 @kerristrug96 fangirl obsessed with the Olympics. What can I say, we’ve come a…
Kiss front man Gene Simmons suggests he’s working to make crypto more accessible
Responding to a tweet from Cameron Winklevoss, co-founder of the Gemini crypto exchange, rock star Gene Simmons said he plans to make Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) more easily accessible. “It’s easier to buy Bitcoin and Ether if you are already in the old system,” Winklevoss said in a Sept. 15 tweet, summing up a rather long thread addressing racial bias, crypto and decentralized finance. “If you don’t have a bank account, it’s hard to get funds into crypto,” he noted, adding: “We need to change this.” Retweeting the post…
eToro, BlockFi & Nexo capitalize on Brave ads for ‘unmatched engagement’
According to Brave browser, businesses like eToro, BlockFi, and Nexo have achieved unprecedented results by advertising to the platform’s users. Considering the popularity of Brave within the crypto community, this does not come as a surprise. For instance, the crypto-lending platform BlockFi was able to reduce its customer acquisition costs by 75% with Brave ads. The campaign was also twice as effective as a Google campaign in terms of the percent of respondents who opened accounts. BlockFi’s marketing manager Nick Ries was quoted as saying: “Brave has proven to be one…
Unikrn ICO faces further SEC action
Unikrn, an initial coin offering, or ICO, from 2017, faces action from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commision, or SEC. The SEC has accused the startup of running its ICO without going through the proper legal channels, based on a Sept. 15 statement from the regulating body. The commission claims Unikrn offered an unregistered investment opportunity. “Unikrn agreed to settle the charges by paying a $6.1 million penalty, substantially all of the company’s assets, to be distributed to investors through a Fair Fund,” the statement said. Unikrn made headlines back in…
MIT scholar suggests ETC counters 51% attacks
The recent 51% attacks on Ethereum Classic (ETC) have raised fresh questions about the security of proof-of-work blockchains. Not only has ETC been attacked three times within a month, but these assaults have been enabled with rented hashrate power. One of these attacks cost OKEx $5.6 million as it paid out its customers in full. The major cryptocurrency exchange then threatened to delist Ethereum Classic if it doesn’t improve its security soon. Some questions being asked last week were: Is this problem unique to Ethereum Classic, or are all PoW…
BitPay decides to let all employees work from home permanently
Bitcoin (BTC) payment and wallet company BitPay has chosen to take its company’s working atmosphere remote, permanently. A poll from within the company revealed: “85% of employees preferred to work from home and felt they were more productive,” said a Sept. 15 statement. “This insight coupled with the continuation in business, is a main reason the company chose to make working from home permanent.” As a niche largely held within the digital world, the crypto space often sees companies and individuals working remotely. A growing trend in light of COVID-19…
Nearly 30,000 blockchain votes were recorded in Russian elections — The most ever
Close to 30,000 votes were recorded on the blockchain during the Russian parliamentary elections in what appears to have been the biggest case of blockchain-based voting yet. The blockchain component of the online voting platform was built by Waves Enterprise. The voting concluded early yesterday, and according to the chief product officer of Waves Enterprise, Artem Kalikhov, everything went off without any hiccups. He told Cointelegraph that the elections took place on the permissioned network run by Rostelecom. The firm was contracted by Russia’s Central Election Commission, which, in turn, subcontracted…